FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
L.A. County has fewer than 100 ICU beds available, with worst still coming, officials say [Los Angeles Times]
Intensive care unit beds across Southern California are plummeting to critical levels, with capacity falling to 1% in Ventura County and 0% in Riverside County while Los Angeles County home to 10 million people had fewer than 100 beds available.
But the worst of the surge is still to come, experts say. L.A. County has more than 4,400 people hospitalized with COVID-19, and officials said that number could rise to 5,000 by the weekend.
The shortages come as the coronavirus continues to rage across the state. A Los Angeles Times county-by-county tally showed an unprecedented 42,129 cases reported Monday. That number breaks the single-day record set Dec. 8, when 35,400 coronavirus cases were recorded.
Ambulances waiting at hospitals for six hours
In Los Angeles County, emergency rooms are so crowded that some ambulances have been forced to wait as long as six hours to offload patients, said Cathy Chidester, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency. Some patients arriving by ambulance are asked to sit in the emergency department lobby so the ambulance can depart.
California is also desperately seeking more medical staff from overseas, perhaps from as far away as Australia, while opening field hospitals to care for non-ICU patients in places such as Costa Mesa, Porterville, Sacramento and Imperial; other facilities are on standby status in Riverside, Richmond, Fresno, San Diego and San Francisco.
2020-12-16 13:05:52 GMT2020-12-16 21:05:52(Beijing Time) Xinhua English
by Julia Pierrepont III
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) Unchecked Thanksgiving gatherings of friends and families across the Golden State result in an unprecedented surge of COVID-19 cases, with more to come, California health officials noted Tuesday, warning statewide intensive care units (ICUs) capacity is at only 5.7 percent.
California health officials reported an unprecedented 42,120 cases on Monday, six times higher than mid-October, breaking the single-day record set Dec. 8 when 35,400 coronavirus cases were recorded.
And on Tuesday, Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the United States, reported record levels of 11,194 new COVID cases a day and 86 confirmed deaths, the highest number since the summer surge.
ICUs in California drowning by coronavirus surge - Xinhua xinhuanet.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from xinhuanet.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Intensive care unit beds across Southern California are plummeting to critical levels, with capacity falling to 1% in Ventura County and 0% in Riverside County while Los Angeles County home to 10 million people had fewer than 100 beds available.
But the worst of the surge is still to come, experts say. L.A. County has more than 4,400 people hospitalized with COVID-19, and officials said that number could rise to 5,000 by the weekend.
The shortages come as the coronavirus continues to rage across the state. A Los Angeles Times county-by-county tally showed an unprecedented 42,129 cases reported Monday. That number breaks the single-day record set Dec. 8, when 35,400 coronavirus cases were recorded.